Another desperate attempt was made in the same year to restrict the unprofitable idling in the streets with carriages and an order was issued that no new coaches were to be made without a license from the President of the Council, and no man was to ride in a coach without leave, "as the King is informed that gentlemen are forgetting how to ride." Women also are to refrain from covering up their heads and faces, in order that they may be seen and recognised, and they may only be accompanied by their husbands, fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The girls of a family may ride in a coach without the mistress of it, and the owners of coaches may be accompanied by a friend, but with this exception no coach is to go out without its owner, and may not be lent, exchanged, or sold without special license. Ruffs had now apparently become general with all classes, as a pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying that, notwithstanding the former prohibition of the {245} use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills, and collars, poor people would insist upon wearing them, and they consequently might now be made of those cheaper materials as well as of fine linen. In March, 1621, Philip III. died, leaving luxury and extravagance in his capital more rampant than ever, and Philip IV., a mere boy, at once set to work to grapple the evil with as much confidence as if he were the first to attempt it. If economy had ever been needed it was so now, for the public treasury was empty, the people ruined with oppressive taxation, ecclesiastical extortion and official peculation, and the country was rapidly becoming depopulated. A curious pamphlet is still in existence which contains a series of exhortations addressed to the King in the year of his accession by a noble member of the Cortes of Castile, setting forth the various evils from which the country was suffering, and proposing remedies for them.[3] There is much plain speaking and boldness on many matters therein, and, amongst others, on the eternal question of sumptuary extravagance. The representation on this subject has so direct a bearing upon what has already been said as to the inoperativeness of the pragmatics, that some of it is worth transcribing.